Assistance speeding up my Desktop

Poehring

Poehring

New Member
Hey guys! I just finished building my rig, and I believe it is running a lot slower than it should be. Here is what I am running.

Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced
Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 Motherboard
AMD FX-8120 8 Core Processor
GeForce GTX 550Ti 1GB Video Card
16GB Gskill Ripjaw X Series PC3-14900
Corsair TX850 PSU
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD (OS)
Western Digital 750GB SATA (Formatted)
Western Digital 2TB Sata (Formatted)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

I know there are a lot of tweaks you can do in the BIOS to skip post and make boot-up much faster. Currently I am experiencing about a 15 second Hang-up before the BIOS, then it takes Windows about 35 seconds to go through its logo start-up screen. Over-all my comp takes about 50 seconds to a minute to boot. All my drives are formatted and have nothing on them, with the exception of my Samsung 840 Pro SSD, which has my OS. Correct me if I am wrong (It's been known to happen), but there is no reason why my PC should take longer than 20 seconds from power to OS, considering my specs.

I also know there are some tweaks in Windows you can do, such as RegEdit and what not. I am all ears for any of this. I am also taking suggestions on good PC Monitor Software. Currently I am using Core Temp v1.0 RC-6 64bit. I am using the stock cooler, and have no interest in Overclocking just yet, so I should be good with that.

Ive done a few things in the BIOS already, such as skip search for USB and PS2 devices. I also told it to ignore all other drives for OS's, so it would only try to load the SSD. That may have been incorrect. Even with those things switched around, it's still pretty slow to boot. Currently, according to my DXDiag, I am using BIOS v. 04.06.05. Not sure if that means anything to you guys :p I can't post my DXDiag here, because the file size is too big. If it is requested, I will copy/pasta my DXDiag at the bottom of my post. Just don't want to spam the post.

Also, My case has 4 fans. Intake both in Front and Bottom, Exhaust in the Rear and Top.

Let me know if you guys have any questions, and I will do my best to answer them in a timely manner. Thanks for giving the newbie a shot!

Edit: Added a couple details.

Edit2: I followed the 9 steps to boost your SSD for Windows 7 Users. Even after doing everything on there (Except FancyCache for Disk, for some reason it wont read my Disk info, maybe the program is outdated?), even after all that, I am still receiving very slow boot-up speeds.
 
You are running in ahci mode and not a raid configuration? Some motherboards do take a certain amount of time to post. Make sure you disable show boot time diagnostics if its enabled.
 
For RAID to be most efficient, wouldn't I want to have multiples of the same drive? Or is that false? I never even considered RAID. What drives would you recommend I set up in RAID, and what kind of result can I expect?
 
No, you misunderstood me about what I was saying. Let me ask you this. How long after the post screen goes away does it take to get to the desktop and use it? Does the post screen take up a lot of the boot time?
 
Ahhh, my mistake. It hangs the longest after the post screen. Its about 30 seconds from the windows logo, to desktop. It's only about 10-15 seconds from power, to windows logo. Also, by windows Logo, I am referring to the spirally graphic right after the post screen that pulses the windows logo, before actually launching into the desktop.
 
Are you sure you have windows installed to the SSD? I have windows installed to an SSD and it boots slow now and then just like your saying. It stays on the windows logo for quite some time. At this time, there is no hdd activity and I haven't been able to figure it out. Check your hdd activity light on the case to see if its blinking or not.
 
Few things I might try. Disconnect all your drives except your SSD and see how long it takes.

Also, not related to your BIOS issue, but if you go to MsConfig and then the boot tab you can do a couple things. First, check the no GUI boot option. This will make it so you don't see the Windows logo. Should shave a couple seconds off of boot. It will just present you with a black screen in place of the Windows logo. Also go to advanced options and set it to boot on all cores rather than just one. Not sure how much difference it will make but it will probably help a little.

Also, updating your BIOS might help. I was having a slow POST in my BIOS and updating to the newer BIOS helped by 5 seconds or so. For your specs, about 30 seconds is probably a good boot time from pushing the power button to looking at your desktop.
 
johnb35 said:
Are you sure you have windows installed to the SSD? I have windows installed to an SSD and it boots slow now and then just like your saying. It stays on the windows logo for quite some time. At this time, there is no hdd activity and I haven't been able to figure it out. Check your hdd activity light on the case to see if its blinking or not.
Click to expand...

Yep. My SSD is the only drive with anything on it. All my other drives have zero bytes of Data on them, as they are all freshly formatted. I did the formats using windows.

Denther said:
Few things I might try. Disconnect all your drives except your SSD and see how long it takes.

Also, not related to your BIOS issue, but if you go to MsConfig and then the boot tab you can do a couple things. First, check the no GUI boot option. This will make it so you don't see the Windows logo. Should shave a couple seconds off of boot. It will just present you with a black screen in place of the Windows logo. Also go to advanced options and set it to boot on all cores rather than just one. Not sure how much difference it will make but it will probably help a little.

Also, updating your BIOS might help. I was having a slow POST in my BIOS and updating to the newer BIOS helped by 5 seconds or so. For your specs, about 30 seconds is probably a good boot time from pushing the power button to looking at your desktop.
Click to expand...

I will try this right now. Will updating my BIOS have any effect on windows or anything like that? Will I need to re-install anything? I've never updated my BIOS before. I just download the update, stick it in a folder, then navigated to that folder within the BIOS to update it, correct? Just wanted to make sure it's that easy. My BIOS IS pretty awesome. It even has Mouse Support. I'm sure this is standard with all newer BIOS but I wasn't expecting that at all :P

Edit: Alright so I tried those things, and it really didn't do much. The black screen sat there for about as long as the Windows logo would have. I will try troubleshooting the individual drives and see if that helps, but that will have to wait til tomorrow. :P Also, I noticed once in windows, it takes about 15-20 seconds for everything to fully load, such as Microsoft Security Essentials, Network interface, etc...
 
Last edited:
You might want to run memtest on your installed memory to make sure they are running without errors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top